Iran Shines in Global Innovation Index: Achieves Top Ranking for Third Year in a Row!

The latest findings from the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2025 report highlight the Islamic Republic of Iran’s commendable position in the realm of innovation. Ranking second among Central and South Asian countries, Iran has maintained this status for the past three years, demonstrating its resilience and capacity for innovation.

According to the GII 2025, which evaluates innovation performance across 139 economies and identifies the top 100 innovation clusters globally, Iran now holds the 70th position. This is a slight decline from its previous ranking of 64th in 2024, which included 133 economies. Despite this drop, Iran remains a significant player in the innovation landscape.

The country ranks 17th among the 36 upper middle-income economies.
In 2024, Iran was 5th among the 38 lower-middle-income countries.

The GII assesses global economies based on their innovation capabilities, utilizing around 80 indicators that are categorized into innovation inputs and outputs. This comprehensive framework aims to encapsulate the multifaceted nature of innovation.

Over the past six years (2020-2025), Iran’s ranking has fluctuated, with a statistical confidence interval between 56 and 75. In 2025, Iran has shown stronger performance in innovation outputs compared to inputs, ranking:

109th in innovation inputs (down from 85th in 2024).
46th in innovation outputs (up from 48th in 2024).

Several key indicators showcase Iran’s innovation trajectory:

Improvement: Indicators such as International patent filings, Connectivity, Robots, Labor productivity, and Life expectancy have shown positive trends.
Decline: Conversely, Scientific publications, Research and development (R&D) investments, Venture capital deal numbers, Fixed broadband, and temperature change indicators have worsened.

Iran excels in specific domains, ranking:

45th in Creative outputs.
46th in Knowledge and technology outputs.
66th in Human capital and research.

However, challenges persist, with the country ranking 138th in Institutions, 107th in Business sophistication, and 98th in Infrastructure.

When compared to the upper middle-income group averages, Iran performs above average in:

Human capital and research (Iran: 32.43, Upper middle-income: 29.7).
Knowledge and technology outputs (Iran: 27.46, Upper middle-income: 20.0).
Creative outputs (Iran: 31.87, Upper middle-income: 22.6).

Published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the GII report highlights Iran’s strengths in Market capitalization. The rankings reveal:

2nd in Trademarks by origin.
5th in Software spending.
6th in Gross capital formation.
8th in Graduates in science and engineering.
10th in Labor productivity growth.
14th in Industrial designs by origin.
14th in Patents by origin.
22nd in Domestic market scale.
23rd in High-tech imports.

The GII introduces the concept of innovation clusters, which represent local concentrations of innovation activity. These clusters are identified through patent-filing activities, scientific article publications, and venture capital activity. They highlight areas with the highest density of inventors, scientific authors, and venture capitalists.

In 2025, Switzerland retains its title as the world’s innovation leader. Notably, China has entered the top 10 for the first time, while several middle-income economies, including India, Turkey, Viet Nam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, and Iran, have been identified as the fastest climbers since 2013.

This year, Tehran has been recognized as the 63rd largest science and technology (S&T) cluster globally, as reported by the UN’s WIPO. The GII identifies the top innovation clusters worldwide based on:

Location of inventors listed in published patent applications under the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
Authors listed on published scientific articles.
Venture capital (VC) deal locations (a new metric introduced this year).

In Asia, Tehran stands out as the only Iranian cluster within the top 100 innovation clusters in 2025. It achieved:

49 PCT applications.
8,269 scientific articles published.
12 venture capital deals, all per 1 million inhabitants over the last five years.

Tehran’s top publishing organizations include:

University of Tehran: 7,275 articles (12% share).
Islamic Azad University: 5,763 articles (10% share).
Tehran University of Medical Sciences: 5,158 articles (9% share).

Leading PCT applicants from Tehran consist of:

Mohammad Abdolahi: 16 patents (4% share).
Ahmad Ghanbari: 5 patents (1% share).
Mohammad Durali: 5 patents (1% share).

Notably, 4% of Tehran’s PCT patent applications are collaborative, with Los Angeles, Graz, and Vienna being prominent collaboration locations. Additionally, 26% of Tehran’s scientific articles are published in collaboration with other organizations, with Seoul, London, and Boston-Cambridge ranking as the top three collaborative locations.

In 2025, Tehran’s innovation metrics include:

357 PCT applications.
60,217 scientific publications.
85 venture capital deals.
0.03 share of global PCT applications.
0.73 share of global scientific publications.
0.04 share of global venture capital deals.

The estimated cluster population, PCT applications per capita, and scientific publications per capita for Tehran are:

Cluster population: $7.2 trillion.
PCT applications per capita: $49 million.
Scientific publications per capita: $8.2 billion.

Tehran’s venture capital pre-deals per capita stand at approximately 11.67, with the total innovation intensity share per capita being 0.11. Despite the drop in ranking to 63rd place, it is essential to note that this change is primarily due to the incorporation of VC deal counts as a new variable, rather than a decline in the city’s academic capacity.

The GII 2025 indicates a broader trend of stagnation in R&D spending and venture capital investment. After a decade of rapid growth, R&D growth has slowed to its lowest pace since the global financial crisis, and the global venture capital landscape has yet to recover from the downturn in 2023.

Despite these challenges, innovation continues to thrive. Green supercomputers are achieving new efficiency records, and costs related to battery technology and genome sequencing are steadily decreasing. The adoption of electric vehicles, 5G technology, and robotics is on the rise, albeit unevenly across various regions. The full impact of artificial intelligence remains uncertain, but its transformative potential is widely recognized.

Encouragingly, the GII 2025 reveals a diversification of innovation momentum across regions, with middle-income economies such as China, India, Turkey, and Viet Nam continuing to ascend in the rankings. Emerging players like Senegal, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, and Rwanda are also making significant strides in innovation.

New features in GII 2025 include expanded global coverage with the addition of six countries: the Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Lesotho, Malawi, Seychelles, and Venezuela. Additionally, improvements to the GII Innovation Ecosystems & Data Explorer aim to empower decision-makers with comprehensive insights into their economies’ innovation systems, highlighting areas of strength and untapped potential.

The integration of venture capital activity into the innovation cluster ranking for the first time offers a clearer picture of the ecosystems that transition scientific discoveries into entrepreneurial successes, spanning cities like Bangalore, Cairo, Mexico City, and Paris, as well as multi-city hubs such as Silicon Valley and southern China’s Greater Bay Area.